In a hearing on the budget requests for the FDA, a North Dakota Senator steered the conversation towards High Path Avian Flu.
Senator John Hoeven expressed concern about the potential for the virus to infiltrate various animal populations. He raised questions about the strength of containment measures. FDA Commissioner Robert Califf acknowledged no barrier is foolproof.
“Unfortunately, there is no there’s no absolute barrier that can be created. But there are elements of protection that are important, like farm workers. If they’re on a farm with infected cattle. And one good thing here, the cattle don’t die. The mortality rate of cows, as with this virus, is less than 1% from what we’re told. So the cattle will recover, but the workers need to be protected with PPE, just like we all went through with hospital workers, with COVID. When you’re around animals that are infected in the poultry industry, as you may know, they’ve already been through this. Right. And the use of PPE is just routine in the poultry industry. But this is new for the for the cattle industry. And so there’s a lot of work to be done to get to the right place,” said Dr. Robert Califf.
Califf says it is important to keep improving preparedness and response measures. He said containment efforts have been significant. In terms of the spread to cattle, he said having anti-virals and vaccines readily available is necessary.
